I eventually got my hands on the Japanese cartoon DVD sets and when I got to the series that featured Road Caesar (japanese translation to english is always a funny thing), I started to wonder why the characters displayed accessories and a merging ability my toys did not have.

So, out of curiosity, I decided to see if they linked together.
And they did.

So why didn't my releases come with the guns, shields and stuff to merge them into one Combiner Autobot?